Alan will remember them

Cleaning up the headstones in Hautapu, Leamington and Pukerimu cemeteries is a labour of love for Alan Sherris of the Cambridge RSA but he used to have problems finding the ones he had been working on.

After all there are literally hundreds of gravestones dating back to the 1800s, so he needed a system.

“When I first started doing some work on the services grave, I had to locate them.

“A month later I had to locate them all again.”

So, he decided to put red tape on the gravestones. It was that red tape which bemused Cambridge Museum staff and participants on a recent The Dead Tell Tales event around Hautapu Cemetery.

Karen Payne was also puzzled about who had cleaned up Irish businesswoman Mary Teresa Murphy’s headstone since she started researching her two years ago.

And now both mysteries have been solved.

Soon after last week’s Cambridge News came out, Merv Cronin popped into the museum to see Payne and told her it was he who had cleaned Murphy’s headstone.

Her maiden name was Cronin and he felt there could be a tenuous family link.

Karen Payne and Merv Cronin.

“So, he got some Wet ‘n’ Forget a couple of months ago and cleaned up her headstone,” said Payne.

“He was very surprised to see it come up so white. It was probably the first time it’s been cleaned for 110 years.”

The RSA project mystery has also been solved. Sherris is working on a project aimed at protecting Cambridge’s war graves and protecting the resting places of those affiliated with New Zealand’s military past.

It was launched three years ago by the New Zealand Remembrance Army and coordinated by the RSA.

“The red tape is a clear highlight that I can see from some distance away,” said Sherris.

“As I complete a headstone restoration the red tape is removed.”

“It becomes very clear that over time families have moved, died away because the future generations have given their all, so the restoration of military gravesites is to ensure the service and sacrifice these young Kiwis made is not lost and forgotten.”

Sherris said while seeing great numbers attending Anzac Day services is good, his motivation is to assist in ensuring those who lost their lives and then died after that, are also recognised.

“In restoring some of the family headstones one gets a profound awareness of the contributions made by many of the families in Cambridge – not just the loss of a son or brother – but also the suffering of the whole families that, in some cases, lost their future generations,” he said.

See: Restoration on war graves begins